Testing Performance Mail Relay

By:

Postal is a free mail server benchmark program that is used to test the performance of a mail server when receiving mail via SMTP and sending it to clients via POP3.

I have recently added a new component called bhm (Black Hole Mailer) that receives mail at variable speeds and simulates common network network problems including anti-spam measures that delay or prevent the transfer of mail.

The idea is to use the main postal program to send mail to a list server or relay and then use bhm to send the mail to /dev/null so that the performance of the list server or relay can be measured.

This presentation will start with an overview of the Postal suite explaining how to use the programs and interpret the results. Then I will cover the new bhm feature, the theory behind it, the way it's used, and some benchmark results from using it.

Stream: Other

Paper: Testing Performance Mail Relay

Russell Coker has been using Linux since 1993. He started using Linux commercially in 1995 for an Internet cafe and ISP he started. Between 1996 and 2002 he worked for a number of large ISPs and became interested in testing the performance of ISP infrastructure. He started working on SE Linux in 2001 and from 2003 to early 2006 worked for Red Hat on the integration of SE Linux into Fedora and Red Hat Enterprise Linux.